Like my other dives into Judaic texts, I’m going to keep this one simple and short. Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (more commonly known as Maimonides, or as “the Rambam” (רמב״ם) which is just an acronym of his title and name) was born in 1135 CE and was an astronomer, physician, and, apparently, a bit of a savant when it came to studying and summarizing Judaic scripture. By age 20 he was already writing books on Jewish philosophy, guides to daily living, and more. His magnum opus is a fourteen volume work called the Mishneh Torah, which is basically his rewrite of the entire Torah and associated rabbinic rulings into common speech. That’s to say, he recognized that the Aramaic and Hebrew that these texts were written in were basically unknown to a huge number of people by the Middle Ages, and he rewrote it so that the average person could read, study, and understand. There are two schools of thought on studying the Mishneh Torah, one is a chapter a day, which takes around three years, the other is a three-chapter a day cycle that takes a year. I’m going for the latter, since it conveniently starts up… today. I’m going to just keep this one on all one page.
Introduction and Sefer Madda (Book of Knowledge)
- Introduction
- Laws of the Foundations of the Torah
- Human Dispositions
- Torah Study
- Foreign Worship and Customs of the Nations
- Repentance
In the Mishneh Torah, “Sefer Ahavah” means “The Book of Love”. It is the second of the 14 books in Maimonides’ encyclopedic work on Jewish law. The title refers to the book’s purpose: to detail the commandments that foster a constant and active love for God. Ahavah includes laws concerning key Jewish practices and rituals. By systematizing these commandments in one book, Maimonides emphasizes that these daily and frequent acts are how a person cultivates and expresses a love for God.
- Reading the Shema
- Prayer and the Priestly Blessing
- 10/9/25, Chapter 1 – Fitting, interestingly, with a debate that I covered today over in the Daf Yomi, Maimonides lays praying at the feet of the rabbis. After all, he writes, other than the twice daily saying of the Shema, there is no schedule, no frequency, no real rules about how and when to say any other prayers that is written in the Torah. All the prayers before and after doing things, eating things, looking at things, etc., were all made up by the rabbis. Not only that, but contrary to the usual narrow minded approach, he goes on to state that since there are no time-based rules, the Torah exception to women, minors, and slaves doing something don’t apply, and they’re welcome and even encouraged to participate in prayer.
- 10/10/25, Chapter 2 – At the heart of Jewish prayer, after the Shema, is the Amidah (“Standing”), or Shemoneh esrei (“Eighteen”), a prayer consisting of… nineteen stanzas – originally eighteen, but one was added later – that are said silently, three times a day. It was made up by the council of Rabbi Gamliel during a time when heretical movements were on the rise, as a way of centering oneself against heresy. It consists of a series of blessings that include praise, personal and national requests, and thanksgiving to God. Maimonides details when it should be said, what should be done during it, before it, and after it. In his opinion, of course.
- 10/11/25, Chapter 3 – Although Maimonides fully recognizes that the saying of prayers is fully voluntary and not ordained by God, but rather by a bunch of self-important rabbinical folk, he drills down on the timing of saying the morning and evening prayers. If you’re going to say them, voluntarily, then you can only say them at the prescribed times, and if you say them at the wrong times, you have to say an extra prayer to make up for it, a prayer of compensation. But… if it’s all voluntary and not actually required, why would anyone have to follow the rules about when to say them?
- 10/12/25, Chapter 4 – There are five things that need to be handled before praying according to the Rambam, washing ones hands, covering up of nudity, purity of the place one is praying, distracting activities, and proper intention. I keep coming back to that the rabbis made all this prayer stuff up, because 99% of it isn’t in the Torah, and Maimonides went further and added his personal preferences to their rules. I think, somewhere prior to this project, I thought of the Mishneh Torah as some sort of sacred writing and more and more I’m realizing it was just the personal opinions and foibles of one, self-proclaimed, historian and scholar..
- 10/13/25, Chapter 5 – More rules of praying from our scribe: you must pray standing, facing the Temple (or at least where it was), be clean, be dressed properly, be in a proper place, control your voice, bow appropriately, and prostrate yourself appropriately. Given that the whole prayer routine was made up by the rabbis, and most of this isn’t in what they made up, again, I’m just seeing one guy, self-importantly deciding to impose his routine on everyone else.
- Note: I am going to continue the Mishneh Torah sporadically. When I started it, I didn’t understand what it was, thinking it was another of our sacred texts, only to have found that it’s really just a very opinionated explication of the Talmud. It’s still moderately interesting, so I’ll gradually fill in some more, but I’m going to move on to exploring some of the more ancient writings that are part of our canon.